The Horribly Cliched, Fire and Ice
by Gray Glube
Summary: "The Horribly Cliched and Wary Convergence of Fire and Ice" a prompted spin-off of my story "Dishpig and Snowball...," A moment between Warren and Freeze Girl that might have, could have, or would have happened.


**Title:** The Horribly Cliched and Wary Convergence of Fire and Ice

**Author: **grayglube

**Word Count:** 13,000

**Rating:** M

**Warnings:** None

**Summary:** Warren takes up his Magnitude Manipulation teacher's advice and looks for a solution to his lack of subtle power maneuvering.

**Author's Note:** A spin-off of my story "Dishpig and Snowball, Matchstick and Bookmonger", it's a moment that _could_ have happened, basically a smut nugget, you don't have to read the main story to get this but it might help and I don't discourage it. Based on the prompt "water" from stormsandsins who said "you know who" as to the pairing I'm hoping she meant this pairing and not Ethan and guinea pig Magenta cross-species smut.

* * *

"_I'd say you were passable last year, but you know it's not all about the concept of the class, or the written tests. It's the field stuff you have to worry about."_

_

* * *

_

He knew he had been passable. No one needed to tell him that.

Passable wasn't good enough.

He knew that too and so did Ms. Vargas when they'd discussed the issue, and_ issue_ was putting it lightly. He didn't pass for the second year in a row and he might not graduate.

And while graduation was not _technically_ necessary to get a career in the superhero market, some organizations looked past such issues of unsuccessful completion where there was talent, it helped, and he wasn't sure he had quite enough of _that_ type of talent to earn that perk.

Fuck, he didn't even know if he wanted that perk.

It didn't change the issue, much, so he put it off a month.

But then Ms. Vargas had called his mother, which _did _change the issue, a lot.

Monday he had a list supplied on a post-it note with the water-mark of a coffee cup overlaying the black pen scribbling.

He peeled it away from Ms. Vargas' gnarled index finger when she held out her hand to stop him from leaving the classroom a day after the call.

She didn't look up, pretending not to notice the disgruntled look on the young man's face.

Warren pretended not to notice the self-satisfied smile on hers.

He couldn't stay mad at her for longer than three periods.

He understood.

The list was short.

* * *

"_Maybe you should ask Dolores to help you; she was one of my best. Maybe even Layla or Zack I've seen them work with their powers before, they're both very good. I know you all are in the same circle_."

_-Dolores Nansen_

_-Layla Williams_

_-Zack Zane_

_I have more if these don't work out._

_

* * *

_

She might as well have just given him one name. He knew who she was betting on, no reason to camouflage it with other options that weren't even real options.

Layla and him didn't mesh, last time he checked plants were still flammable.

Zack was…out. He didn't dwell on coming up with any reason other than the fact that it was Zack.

He called Magenta.

"Yo, ho," she sounded cheerful.

"Hey, rat face. You with Lo right now?"

There was a pause and he could almost hear the smirk growing on the end of the line.

"Yeppers, why, wanna invite us over and then kick me out and have hot relations with my snow angel?"

He didn't allow the image of sex in the snow that crossed his mind to delay his answer.

"Needed to ask her a question."

"What kind of a question? Please tell me a dirty one; you guys need to pick up the pace on this seduction thing."

He snorted.

"I'll get on that. Is she there? Because I'll ask if she wants to make my volcano erupt."

His tone was dry and he fished around for a cigarette from the pack on his desk.

There was silence on the line.

Followed by laughter.

An echoing bout from far away in the room.

Shit.

Fuck speaker-phone.

"I appreciate the offer and all, but you know the idea of molten lava hot liquids does not a swooning girl make. Sorry about the asshole," she apologized for Magenta, who could still be heard laughing in the background.

He gave his head a quick sharp trip to the wall next to his desk and clenched the phone tight enough to hurt his hand. He was going to hit Magenta with his truck.

"Sorry, I was kidding."

She laughed.

"And here I thought you were trying to seduce me Mister Peace, I was just about to break out the scented candles and Victoria's Secret and kick Magenta out. What did you need, besides me making your volcano erupt?"

A cold shower, now.

"I need a tutor."

"Are you going to pay me?"

"Uh…,"

She chuckled and cursed in the same breath, he assumed Magenta was doing something annoying.

"Kidding, kidding. Just feed me and let me bum, cigarettes and chum is just about all I need. I am secretly rich you know."

Over the line something that sounded suspiciously like 'sugar mommy' was shouted by someone else.

He waited for the noise of someone getting their ass kicked, or at least getting kicked out of the room to fade.

"Warren? You still there?"

He took a drag off his cigarette.

"Yeah still here. That sounds okay, by the way."

"What the sugar mommy thing? I give excellent presents in exchange for naughty pleasantries."

He ignored the images that came with _that_ and pressed on.

"You know Ms. Vargas?"

"Yeah. Had her last year for mag manip."

"I need a tutor, for that."

"Ha! Or what you won't graduate?"

It was a joke but his silence shut her up.

"Oh! Shit. Sorry, didn't mean it like that. Alright, when do you want me to come over?"

"I've got Saturday off."

"Hmmmm…"

"And tomorrow, but I figured one day is too short notice."

"Yeah…okay. I mean I _can_ do Saturday, it's just that Magenta's doing her pumpkin party thing Friday night and we…okay wait, you should know this already. She'll shank you if you don't come."

"I have work until eleven."

He heard her sigh in envy.

"So why don't we do it after you get off from work? I mean I don't mind leaving at eleven, I don't plan on spending all night with drunk juniors who are going to try and grind on me anyway, so why don't you pick me up? Unless you're going to be tired and then we could just hold off until next Saturday."

Mulling it over with a puff and an exhale he figured that he wouldn't be going to bed until late anyway.

"Yeah, that works. You're not going to trashed are you?"

It was a joke and he smiled when he said it.

"Pfft. If I drink, and more aptly _when_ I drink, it is on rare occasion and it's not around other people."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"Do so."

"I will."

"Great."

"Fantastic."

"Friday."

"After eleven."

"Your house?"

"Terrific."

"Cigarettes?"

"Of course."

"Coffee?"

"And food."

"It's a plan."

"See you tomorrow."

"Ugh, do we really have powerball?"

"Thought you liked powerball."

"I do, but my knees are still busted up from yesterday."

"Maybe if you didn't land on them they wouldn't hurt."

"And I'm pretty sure I skinned my ass."

"If you didn't slide across the gym floor while wearing shorts that wouldn't happen."

"My legs are too fantastic to be kept in pants."

He ignored all the trains of thought that could travel those tracks.

She trudged on.

"And, don't pretend like it isn't about the coolest thing ever to see me slide across the floor for a block and then body check someone into the safety glass."

"You're too much."

"Magenta says I'm just enough."

"Magenta is a dick."

"Yeah I'm sure she _led _you into the comment about me making your volcano erupt, we gotta work on that pillow talk. And Magenta is also back, so we'll talk tomorrow. Bye."

"Bye."

He smacked his head against the wall again for good measure and caught the window frame.

It hurt.

Possibly as much as his pride.

* * *

"_You need to practice more."_

_

* * *

_

The day to Magenta's party passed as slowly as expected and when the night finally came and he drove up after work he was half surprised no one had passed out on the lawn.

He cursed when her cell went to voicemail.

He was going to have to go in.

The music was loud, not loud enough to call the proper authorities but loud enough to drown out the idea of school and responsibility and most of the consequences.

His senses were assailed by chanting for someone to chug chug chug, throbbing bass, the sway of the half-drunk sea of underagedness, and the smell of staling beer and too much cigarette smoke.

Scanning while maneuvering around smash bits of pumpkin and spilled liquids he tried to find the glow of a cigarette, blond hair, and squinted eyes behind smudged black rimmed glasses.

The cigarette was half done and her hair was braided and shiny in the flashing light, but her eyes were hard and angry right along with the snarl her lips had twisted themselves into.

With her back against the wall boxing in the bottom of the stairs and her boot hung against the edge peaking through the banister she seemed small and the beer can she used as an ashtray gave her an air of untouchableness.

She eyed him warily and for a moment he thought for sure it was him who she was angry at.

Bypassing a stack of cans and bracing himself on the banister he looked over at her.

She ashed her cigarette into the hole in the top of the can she held.

"Hey."

"Hey back."

"You pissed off?"

"You have _no_ idea. Let's go."

He pushed away from the banister but kept his hands tight on it.

She looked him over.

He noticed but took it as a predatory anger thing, not an interested in him thing.

"You don't want to say goodbye to the rat-girl?"

"Fuck her," she smiled and went on to clarify, "She's busy dancing with Zack, anyway."

Warren grinned and watched her slip her cigarette into the can and then leave it on the stairs as she got up, placing her hand between his on the banister to push herself up.

He turned and walked towards the door with her on his heels.

"Nice boots," he told her when they passed through the threshold.

"Thanks. Like yours too."

He looked down and smiled stupidly until a smell twisted his nostrils.

Turning so fast she had to reel back and throw a leg behind her to not run into him, he looked her up and down, twice, and then leaned in, sniffed, and reeled back himself.

His eyes hardened.

"Are you trashed?"

For a moment she was gob-smacked and stuttered when she gave him her answer.

"No!"

"You smell."

She frowned and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, I know."

He waited for clarification.

"I got puked on, alright!"

His face went blank, he recovered fast.

"Do you need to change?"

She walked past him to his truck.

"And shower, but your house is closer and I'm using your washing machine too. So come on before _I _puke."

He followed for a few steps and then stopped when he realized she was going to be taking a shower at _his_ house, only when she yelled out for him to get in the truck did his feet start moving again, feeling lucky he'd had the foresight to clean the bathroom on his day off.

* * *

"Sorry, the big light is broken."

He explained when the first switch on the wall did nothing when clicked back and forth repeatedly.

She made a sound and flicked the second, the light above the tub cast the bathroom in half-shadow, not as bad a pitch black in terms of seeing but exactly as bad in terms of what some people might call atmosphere.

Certain lighting made everyone look good and for the pair it did away with the black circles under their eyes and instead made it much harder for one to stand next to the other, dim lighting made certain things easier to see than in the light of day.

She moved and sat on the covered toilet, untying her timberlands. With care she placed them on the bathroom counter and then paused, thinking better of it because it might be something he considered rude, and tossed them to the tile floor.

"Here's a towel."

There was already one set on the floor to step on.

"So I was thinking," she trailed off.

"What?"

"Well I came up with the perfect way to get started with your training."

The grin she gave him was the definition of 'devilish.'

He rolled his eyes because he half hoped she was teasing.

Of course there was the other half that fervently hoped she had come up with something that matched the way her grin looked.

"What is it?"

She looked at the wall. He would have said she looked nervous if he wasn't so busy wondering exactly what her _idea_ was.

Turning and leaning over the tub she pulled the handle for cold water and left the other for hot alone.

He ogled the curve of her spine and kept his eyes there for the simple fact that the sight of her ass in jeans would have made him blush.

"You will heat up my bath water," she turned and was all closed-eyed smile cuteness.

"That's it?"

He could have thrown himself down the stairs.

Her smile stopped him.

"I run cold."

He wondered if she was trying to start a different conversation.

"Yeah, well I run hot."

"Exactly."

He didn't think her understood the point of this conversation, didn't quite realize they were still having the same one they started with.

"Are you trying to make a point?"

"You're going to have to keep heating it up."

She got suddenly quiet, the gurgle of water slapping water the only sound left in the room.

He for sure thought anyone could hear his brain sparking like a wall socket with a fork stuck in it.

"You want me to continuously heat up your bath water?" He chewed on the inside of his cheek thinking of how many ways that could be taken, and he wondered if she knew the idea she had of him running back and forth at her beck and call to heat up water wasn't the only way her idea could work.

"Yeah, so in about five minutes we'll get started."

"Why not now?"

She looked at him like he was stupid.

He got why.

"Oh, because the water is cold. Wow I'm dumb. Sorry."

She laughed and then snorted, took out a cigarette and walked to him and lifting his hand. He obliged and she inhaled.

"I'm surprised you take me seriously." And she blew out smoke.

Sitting on the bathroom counter with his boots in the empty sink he smirked.

"Why shouldn't I?"

He was joking but she looked thoughtful when she jumped up at the other end of the counter.

"Guess I just assumed it. You're not always so easy going with things, you know? But don't worry I won't make you blush, you can sit by the end of the tub by my feet and I'll even pull the shower curtain, good thing it isn't see through," she smiled.

Okay, so he was a very confused boy by this point in the conversation.

Confused mostly because fantasies never came to life.

"What?"

The moment the word left his mouth and her face blanched a second later he wished he never said it.

"Are we on the same page here?"

"I don't know, are we?"

Cigarette forgotten she tapped her heels together and looked suddenly very out of place with her too long jeans and cigarette .

"No, I don't think we are. Holy shit, that's embarrassing."

She looked it.

"Sorry, I guess I just thought that that idea was not an idea you would actually come up with."

Looking at him from behind the blond strands escaping from her braid she took a breath.

"It's just that, magnitude of your power is hard for you. The level at which you exert it. I just thought: yeah you can go back and forth and heat it up when it gets cold but you're not really doing anything different. You have no problem with the big and little of it size wise, but the degrees of it you are having trouble with. It was a dumb idea, anyway. Sorry."

He shook his head and tried to think of an answer that would remove that god-awful shade of uncertainty from her face and the set of her shoulders.

She took a drag and hopped off the counter to stop the water.

"It's not a bad idea. It's just, I don't know…unexpected."

She stopped moving, she didn't turn.

"Why? Because you're a boy and I'm a girl and there's nakedness involved."

Without pause he answered.

"Yes. Probably that is why. But it is still a good idea and it's not like the nakedness will get in the way because there's you know, a shower curtain, and I'm not a pervert…-"

"All boys are perverts."

He did not ignore her interruption.

"I know for a fact so are all girls."

"I do not refute this."

He could imagine the smile that went with her words. Clearly. Exactly.

"So I will sit on the floor and heat your stupid bathwater. I won't even peek."

Somewhere between all his words he wondered why he was suddenly agreeing to such a bad idea, he made it out to be the late night and the novelty of the situation.

Many a stupid thing could be chalked up to that combination.

"I can be smelling not like vomit real quick, so like an hour tops. Don't want your ass to cramp from the floor."

"I'll go stand outside the door then, call me when you're, uh…, in."

He made to leave.

"Um, Warren?"

"Yeah?"

"You expect me to climb into ice water?"

"Shit. Sorry."

He turned around and she stepped to the side. Passing through a cloud of blue cigarette smoke he dipped his hand in. The water steamed and after he flicked off his fingers and turned to go he caught the look on her face.

It was a look he could get used to.

Awe. Or something close to it.

"Don't think I'll ever get tired of seeing _that_."

Smiling she nodded to the door.

"What?"

Obvious not prepared to have to explain her answer her eyes got wider, as if to say 'you don't know?'

"You. Your powers. The way you use them. I mean with me, yeah I passed Precision, but it's different I have to warm up, so to speak, it takes awhile for me to get them to up to that level, I mean I'm brilliant with my magnitude control but precision? Pfft. Like everything just the target stuff, the task work, I'm not that good."

She shrugged.

"You don't have to leave the room, just like turn around and move will ya?"

He nodded and didn't say another word.

The silence filled with the sounds of her getting undressed paired with the shadow of it, when it moved outside of the black of his own, made his skin hot, groin tighten, and breathing shallow out.

He mused if she noticed.

She must have, if she didn't then it would be a crime to not know how good she was, or how good she could be if she wanted to be.

He didn't mean _good_ in the behavioral sense, rather he stuck on the idea of her just being skilled, adept, that _good_ in everything she could ever think or want to do. Because certainly she was anything but good in a behavioral sense, she smoked too much, was too smart, and too vigorous to be good.

She was too mean and too jaded to be good.

And she was jaded.

So was he.

He knew jaded inside out.

That feeling that nothing pleased, just amused. He'd ask her about it one day. Find out what were her reasons to be like that. Compare tragedies and all that.

One day he'd get tired and drunk and lonely enough to ask.

Water sloshed and he watched her shadow move, dip, dance out of sight with the sound of the ting and sweep of the curtain pulling closed.

He heard her exhale, and the sizzle.

He wondered idly and inappropriately if her skin steamed right away, melting her.

He wondered if it would do that under his fingers or if it was just that way with water.

A long vertical slit of light got brighter, he turned and her face smiled at him from the opening in the curtain.

"Okey dokey then, here we go."

The light laugh that followed made him think she was quoting something; he was too busy wondering if the situation was really happening as he moved to sit between the toilet and tub wall to ask what it was from.

Pulling the curtain he dipped in a hand and relaxed his shoulder against the wall, he tried not to notice her folded clothes on top of the closed toilet lid inches away.

He wondered what type of panties she'd worn, she'd placed them under her jeans, but her bra peeked out, it was pink and ruched and goffered, the type of thing he'd say looked French if he was ever to have to describe girls' undergarments in such terms.

Skin met skin and he sloshed water up with how quick he removed his fingers from her toes.

"Sorry."

He couldn't see her face, which meant she probably couldn't see how bad his cheeks reddened.

"It's alright, feels nice. My toes are always cold."

Her face peeked out and she smiled sweetly.

They were silent for a moment until she peeked out again. He'd been exhaling and was quickly embarrassed to even breathe, which he realized just as quickly was just dumb.

"Hey, Warren?"

"Yeah?"

"What do I use?"

He had no idea what she meant. She must have noticed when he didn't answer right away.

"Like what shampoo and stuff?"

Pausing he tried to remember what was in his shower.

Generic shampoo and his mother's dove, his Axe, his mother's Avon stuff, and one of those fuzzy things that girls used instead of a washcloth, it was red, soap, his Gillette razor, his mother's Bic.

What was she supposed to use?

"You can use whatever you want, I don't mind."

"Okay," her face disappeared and he heard her untie her hair, the elastic swick of her hair tie and then her dunking her head under the water once she pulled her braid apart.

He focused on keeping his hand from getting too hot.

"So, can we talk or something. If we don't I'm going to feel really weird."

"Okay, what do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know," she moved and water tickled its way up his wrist as she shifted.

"Explain the difference between magnitude and precision."

She snorted and flicked something open; he never realized how loud something being lathered sounded before. He realized right then that it was consumingly loud.

The smell hit him on a delay.

Axe.

She was using _his_ body wash.

_He _smelled like his body wash.

_She_ was going to smell like his body wash.

She was going to smell like _him_.

"Magnitude is about levels, precision is about application."

_Her toes brushed his fingers and he didn't so much yank away as twitch a bit._

"The size of a fireball or a lighter flame but at the same level, the difference between water and ice but the same amount."

_She was probably brushing that red sponge thing all over her body right then._

"You have problems with the…innate temperature resonance of things, I have a problem with the size of the particles I can make, a snowball is harder for me to make than an ice cube because the particles are smaller and not as close together in a snowball as in an icecube."

_He was going to run that sponge thing all over his cock the next time he got into the shower and not feel the least bit dirty about it._

"With you…I think…tell me if I'm wrong, but, you have a problem just resonating at different frequencies of heat. Ah hah! That is a great explanation, nailed it."

The water sloshed and her legs moved, his hand ended up on her knee as she rinsed out her hair.

Her leg was smooth and warm and hers under his palm.

He stood up so quick water came out of the tub and she sputtered as she came up again.

More water swayed out at the force of her sliding up in the tub.

"Warren?"

He racked his brain for a plausible excuse.

"…bent my finger when you moved."

He hoped she bought that.

Her face came around the curtain and looked horrified.

"Shit! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to. Fuck. I should have told you I was going to move, huh? How's the finger?"

She laughed nervously, embarrassed.

"Fine. I'll be back, I'm going to get a drink. You want something?"

He thought if he didn't get out of the room he'd suffocate.

"No, I'm fine."

"Alright."

He turned too quickly.

Suddenly he was all flailing limbs and slipping boots.

He almost caught himself, but the towel on the floor was wet and yanked away all posture and control and grip he'd had on the wall a mere second before.

His heart seized and his brain froze in shock.

Boots knocked clothes from their safe, dry spot, hands pulled shower curtain inwards and curtain rod down, ass splashed water everywhere and landed on naked girl, curtain rod met head, soap-dish met elbow, toes met facet, breasts meet other elbow, clothes met water, hair met mouth, catastrophe met disaster and said hello to chaos.

"Motherfucker! Ah, shit!"

He became all too aware of how much of his weight was on her lap and chest after his curses rang back at him with bathroom echo.

Cursing again he made to get off her, stepping for the barest of seconds without knowing so on her not so nicely folded anymore clothes.

"Stop."

He looked at her.

"Just uh, since I'm naked and all why don't you get out and I fix the shower curtain?"

"Sounds good."

"I think it's the best idea."

"Okay."

"Shit."

"What, did I clock you?"

"No, well yes, you did. But, that's not why I said shit."

"Oh, fuck sorry. You okay?"

"Yeah, pretty sure my tit is about to bruise but my teeth are still in my mouth so I'm good."

"So why'd you say 'shit'?"

"You got my panties wet."

His eyes widened.

Her mouth dropped.

"I did not just say that."

"You did not just say that," he confirmed with a nod.

"You can borrow some clothes."

She gave him a disgruntled look.

"What?"

He didn't understand.

"I'm not wearing any pair of your pants without underwear, no offense but it'd _be_ weird and _feel_ weird."

He got that, he didn't think he'd ever be able to put so lucky a pair of pants on again without getting hard.

"You can borrow…," he paused.

"What? A pair of your mom's? That might be just as weird."

"That's what I thought."

"Do you have a robe?"

"Yeah, it's yours. Okay so…,"

"Maybe you should get up and get changed, your ass is all wet."

"I noticed."

He got up; water ran down from his ass to the rest of his skin through denim. His jeans were a pain in the ass to get off once he got to his room.

Retrieving a robe that smelled like cigarettes from the back of his door he went back once he'd changed into sweatpants and one of the shirts he kept around to walk out to get the mail in, he may have slept near naked but he couldn't exactly walk around like that in the house when his mother was home.

He knocked.

"You can come in," came muffled through wood at him on the other side.

She pushed a towel around with her foot, the tub was glugging as it drained, the curtain rod was in place, and she was half naked in a tiny towel, skin pink and wet and warm.

He held out the robe and left the moment it was gone from his grasp.

* * *

On automatic movement he settled on the couch in the living room and stared at the furniture and tried to pick apart his day up until the point in time when they'd both decided it was an acceptable and rational idea for her to take a bath in his tub while he heated up water with his hand while she was naked with a centimeter thick curtain in between them in the dim lighting and steam and shadows.

"Hey."

He looked up and found that he had put his head down and was staring at the living room carpet.

The carpet was probably a better thing to look at than her in that moment.

His robe looked good on her.

"Hey."

She looked out of place in the robe that swam on her and hit the tops of her feet and too long sleeves covering her hands, standing there in the middle of his living room with her glasses perched on the end of her nose.

"Laundry?"

Suddenly it hit him that it was her first time over his house. Quickly he went about rectifying his mistake of not giving her a tour.

Or at least a partial one.

"It's in the basement."

He showed her the basement.

She went about setting up the washing machine and threw her clothes in. The lid shut with a metallic humming rumble.

He tried not to picture the robe pushed up around her waist with him between her thighs as she sat on top of the washing machine.

"So…," she trailed off and hopped onto the dryer, hitching the robe tight around her legs, kicking her ankles lightly against the metal.

He leaned against the boiler trying to think of something to do that would kill the hour it took for her clothes to be washed and spun and back where they belonged on her body.

Finding nothing to do that fit that ideal he stared at her, leaving it to her to finish her own thought with whatever she could think of to fill the silence he wasn't about to claim.

Warren stared at her knees.

They were bruised awfully from the previous day's bout of Power-Ball.

He should know.

Magenta had given him the play by play in order to spark up unwanted imagery that wasn't asked for to begin with.

"Do they hurt?"

He pointed.

She looked down.

"Not really, I can't actually feel them. I don't really have a heated inflammatory response. They just feel puffy and…heavier, I guess."

Her toenails were painted the same color as her nails. Mint.

"It's hard to explain," she clarified.

Warren nodded.

"You hungry? I can cook if you want something?"

Lo looked up and smiled.

"No, I'm alright. But I suppose if I get hungry I have free reign over your fridge."

"Of course," he grinned.

"Good, so what are we going to do until my clothes are done?"

She was still looking at him.

It was hard to hold a conversation when she jostled her small feet against the metal which every so often would let out a dull rumble when her heels hit it too hard.

"We could watch a movie or something since you don't want to eat, I don't know. What do you want to do?" he asked.

She shrugged softly. His robe moved and he consciously watched the way it shifted over her small breasts. He made the effort to move his eyes up to her glasses and focus on the black frames.

"This is the first time I've been in your house, ya know. So I've seen the living room, the bathroom, and the basement…," she ticked off on her fingers.

He closed his eyes and counted the rooms in the house.

"You're missing six rooms."

She looked thoughtful.

"Well kitchen, duh. Your room. That's five. Your mom's room, another bathroom, that's seven. Two more. You're mom probably has her own '_shrine_' somewhere, but I don't think this house is big enough and I didn't get the hidden room vibe."

She was right, his mom's shrine to her glory days was a warehouse downtown, she didn't go there that often because his dad's stuff was still there. It had been raided once, after they'd caught his father. Most of the old stuff was gone but that wasn't the point.

"So two more, let's seeeeee…an office and a…," she paused.

"Do you want me to tell you?"

She grumbled.

"It's a dining room."

He smiled when she got visibly angry.

"Well I'm fucking dumb."

He laughed and she frowned.

"Can I see your room?"

He stopped laughing. Mostly because the implication of girls in boys' rooms was…implication ridden. Partly because he knew she knew the implications of it and so did he and he wasn't sure if she wanted him to _not_ consider the implication of having her in his room or_ to_ consider it.

Because there were friends who were girls that went in your room, Magenta, and then there were girls who were friends that could go in your room, Dolores.

Magenta never asked to go in his room. She just did.

Dolores was asking.

Implications.

"Let me just deactivate the booby traps."

He knew it sounded lame but she hopped off the dryer with a smile in place regardless.

Climbing their way back up the stairs he ogled her ass, blatantly for the reason being that she couldn't see him do it, and neither could anyone else.

* * *

His room wasn't red. Not technically. Burnt sienna was not red.

His desk was organized, paper and textbooks to the side a glass full of pens and highlighters in the corner. The floor was organized mess, there was a laundry basket and cast off shoes and socks.

The bookshelf was piled and organized with no regard for the alphabet or color of spines or author name. The bed was rumpled, but made. He had two pillows, orange sheets, and a white afghan.

There was a game system for when Magenta or the occasional Will came to play and shout obscenities at the television for hours on end.

It looked cozy and too small for such big furniture.

"My room is the color of your sheets, and I kind of hate that your bed is bigger than mine."

It wasn't that big.

She seated herself on his desk and kicked at the chair, tipped it a bit and let it fall back and hit the edge with a sharp wooden slap.

Her grin was embarrassed.

Warren flopped onto his bed and let his legs hang over on the side closet to her. Her toes hit his knee, just barely reaching out from the stretch of her leg.

"You ever feel like when we're together we're ignoring the obvious?"

Her tone was quiet and he wasn't about to shift his eyes from the ceiling to her face for fear of what look he would find on it.

"And that we can't believe each other, even when we know exactly what one of us is saying but we have to pretend like we have no idea."

She was confusing.

"What are you talking about?"

Even with an arm over his face he knew she wasn't even looking at him, probably, most likely she was speaking to the wall.

"You know, and that's what I mean. You know what I'm talking about but you're ignoring it because you think I don't mean anything by it, and we just circle around each other all. the. fucking. time."

This was not what he wanted.

But maybe it was what he wanted but he just hadn't thought this point up when he considered what he wanted.

"You…, you and me. It's so dumb."

He moved his arm and opened his eyes to the white of the ceiling, refusing to look at her.

"Yeah, it really is."

And he sat up and found that she had been looking at him while she talked.

And quite suddenly he was surprised that she didn't look upset that he was staring back at her.

He got it and she could tell.

"Beyond the obvious," and she smiled and grinned at a joke he didn't know.

"We're not different, at all. And I don't know shit about you and you don't know anything about me. And maybe that's because I don't want anyone else to know shit about me but we're not even friends Warren."

And he knew that too.

There wasn't a word for what they were, what was any word that could link two people stuck in limbo together called?

And she got that.

"So my point is we're too similar. We're not a pair, beyond the obvious stupid fucking powers thing. We don't go together, not really, anyway."

She stopped and looked at her knees.

"And really this stuff doesn't happen. Or, it does but, no one gets this lucky, ya know. It's like lotto, you play and hope and never seriously consider winning, but you do consider it and it's so _dumb_. I keep waiting and waiting and hoping that you won't be you one day."

She looked at him and didn't smile, she just shrugged.

"That you'll just leave or something or find a girlfriend or turn out to have this secret personality flaw and I can be like 'knew it,' not for me. But it hasn't happened."

She stopped and grabbed the cigarettes he'd put on his desk.

He stood up, lit it, sat back down and rubbed his head.

"But even when you know something, or when _people_ know something, really know it, it still has to be said. Right?"

He nodded, and felt so tired and awake and uncomfortable. He had to make his hands into fists so they would stopped shaking, had to clench them around his sheets.

"What are you looking for, validation?"

She stopped avoiding his eyes.

"Yeah. That's what I'm looking for."

"Fine."

He stopped talking. He took a breath and balled up.

"I like you. And it's weird."

His lungs seized and he hated that she took so long to compose her thoughts.

"Good."

"Good?"

"Yeah, good. And I can't stand that it's weird."

He looked at her and saw how wet her hair still was and how small she was sitting on his desk in a too big robe and how tired she looked.

"I hate it too."

He heard how shaky her breathing got suddenly after he said it.

"We're not made out for making out in the hallways or walking each other to class, you know that."

And god did he know it. Knew it when he looked at her, when he thought about her at night and added himself to the equation and suddenly her and him became the same fucking thing.

"I wish it wasn't like that, you know? It's just…I don't know. I can't do the Layla and Will thing with you."

"We can't do the Magenta and Zack thing?"

She laughed at that and his lips twisted into a thin smile.

"I don't know what I want. I just know that I kind of want to keep you around, for a long time. I don't know what I'd do with you once I got you. And it's bad to think like that, you're not a toy. But I kind of don't want anyone else to get you."

"I'm not going anywhere."

"But I'm scared you will. You've got everything I want. And we can work, physically. And I keep trying to pretend like I didn't hit the jackpot and get _everything_."

And either he was dumb or she was dancing around the thing she really wanted to say to him.

"Just say it, whatever it is you want to say."

She didn't.

Not for awhile.

"You're like me, at least I think you are and god…, looks wise, smart wise, body temperature wise. Everything fucking _works_. So I like you, and it's just that you have other stuff I can like on top of that fact that you work."

"Are we done with this bullshit now? I'm getting tired of dancing around everything I want to say."

She nodded and put out the cigarette she hadn't even bothered to smoke in her iced up hand.

"Now what do we do?"

He figured he'd might as well ask.

She looked nervous and didn't look at him.

"What?"

"Nothing."

He waited because he knew it wasn't nothing.

"Have you thought about it?"

"I've thought about a lot of things."

The look he gave her when she looked up should have been enough to explain exactly what things he'd meant.

"I mean 'us,' and fuck can you just talk for awhile because I don't know what I want to sa…-"

He cut her off.

"I think about you all the time, I think about us all the time. Mostly I think about exactly what you think I think about. And I think of other things too, not just the obvious stuff."

And he was not about to start telling her. Not unless she asked, because even after they both said they didn't want to dance around things, it was still and always going to be what they did best.

Her stance changed, she looked at him full on and her eyes were hard and curious and they had just about the same effect on him.

Hard and curious.

"Are you going to tell me?"

"Do you want me too?"

"Are you going to sit on the bed all night while you tell me all your hot little fantasies?"

"Seems like the best place doesn't it?"

He tried to joke and was quickly introduced to the fact that she wasn't.

"Not when I'm over here."

"You want me to get up and whisper them in your ear."

And now his cock had developed a voice all its own. He thought he saw her shiver.

He stood up.

She had to look up at him.

"I've never kissed anyone before," she said it so fast and looked down so quick he knew she hadn't meant to say it.

"Do you want me to kiss you? I thought you wanted me to whisper in your ear."

"You can't multitask?"

He snorted and took the step towards her, looked down and grinned.

"What do you want me to do first?" He put his hand down near her hip and rubbed at the bit of robe on his desk.

"You go around kissing girls all the time, Mr. Confidence?"

"Once, last year, Magenta's birthday. Her cousin in the kitchen, twenty minutes in she told me I felt like a heatstroke. That is the rundown of my kissing history, my _only_ history."

"Well shit."

He rolled his eyes.

"Well, yeah. Are you nervous?"

Her fingers pulled the ends of his hair and then reached for her glasses.

"Honestly?"

He leaned down closer. She smelled like boy's cologne, his cologne.

"Yeah. Honestly."

The shape her lips took could be used as a visual aid for 'prurient' in the dictionary and all its synonyms.

"I'm ready to find out how hot your mouth is, thought about _that_ a lot. Anticipation and all."

He had his hand on her shoulder and his thumb rubbing a spot on her clavicle pink, her hair was hard at the ends, he felt them run over his knuckles. Frozen.

And then it was too weird.

Because neither had closed their eyes, for all their respective bravado it was a pitiful excuse for a first and second, respectively, kiss.

He pulled away until her fingers yanking in his hair brought him back and her eyes were closed and her knees were bumping against his legs and then it was much better and not at all weird.

And her lips were chapped and rough and their teeth clinked and suddenly her tongue was on his lip and it was cold and his came out so fast to counter that she choked on surprise and then she found out how hot his tongue made the inside of her mouth feel.

She broke to lick a frozen line across the tendons of his neck and smiled at the sizzle.

He knew he had to have looked surprised, he hadn't been expecting that and he should have because for as delicate as she looked she wasn't, she was tough, and for all her inexperience and his, she had one big set of balls on her.

Big, steely ones.

She could dish it out and so he pulled back.

"Cute."

"Damn right I am, hot stuff."

His fingers were on her knees and she made a sound that didn't sound pleased. It was less of a sexy groan and more of hiss, and that he _really_ hadn't been expecting.

She moved her knees after his hands when he pulled them off.

And that was less unexpected and more surprising.

"Sounded like I hurt you."

Her cheeks were red. He'd never seen her blush. Didn't know she could.

"You did."

"So why do you want me to do it again?"

Warren smirked and she felt the heat of it when he leaned in to brush against her chin, his hands stayed on the desk.

"Remember when I said they don't hurt?"

"Yeah."

"You were just my heated inflammatory response."

"…"

And neither spoke for a long enough time to even out their mingled breath but not enough to make things strange and awkward.

"What?"

"Just thinking about how you like me poking your bruises and how what you just said turned me on, and that it shouldn't have."

He had his lips around her ear to drive the point home and she leaned into the side of his face like it wasn't so much branding hot as it was comfortable and tempting and not cold.

"I really shouldn't like you poking my bruises."

Lo was not in the least bit unproud of the fact that she could get an entire sentence out with his teeth running over her ear lobe and not choke on the words.

"Maybe you're just a masochist."

He felt her response hard and cold on his clavicle. Her teeth stung and she didn't let go until she'd dragged the thin sliver of skin between her teeth and left it sore.

"I've always wanted to _feel_ bruises, but normally I can't. And hearing you make that sound turns _me_ on."

Thumbs dug themselves into the sides of her knees and she stopped looking so smug at the fact that she'd made him let out a sound stuck somewhere between a groan and a squeal.

"_Fuck._"

When he circled them slow and hard he watched her eyes close and her throat swallow, felt one hand clutch the bottom of his shirt and the other drape over his shoulder and knew it clenched into a fist from the way her knuckles grazed his shoulder.

Her forehead fell onto his sternum and he could hear the ragged pants roll out across her tongue, felt the whoosh of them in cold air across his stomach.

And he moved his hips into the desk; it gave a hollow, creaky protest.

And her head snapped up.

And he knew he did something he shouldn't have.

And she slid back further towards the wall behind the desk.

And he was scared to look at her.

"Damn."

His fingers were still on her legs, except now they were on her shins instead of her black and blue knees.

Her fingers reached into his fringe and threaded through looking for his chin and then his throat, her fingers were on his pulse.

"Sorry."

Looking up he saw that she wasn't looking at him.

"Don't be, I should know when you're kidding."

He backed up and her ankles behind his knees stopped him from getting too far.

"I wasn't kidding about _that_. You moved, and I don't want to make you feel weird. Cause you're warm and I'm not used to it, don't want to start petting you and make you feel like you're a cat or something, ya know?"

He didn't but he looked up at her quick enough to see her shrug.

"I don't."

Her eyes moved up to his but her chin didn't even twitch up an inch.

"You're _warm_, Warren. I'm cold, _everywhere_. Get it?"

Throat working and breath hitching he couldn't stare at her anymore and chose the wall instead because he got what she was saying.

He was hard from the explanation.

"Just didn't want to rub up on you," she grinned and nodded her head to the side like something was funny.

The tone of her voice made it impossible to not shift his eyes back to her; she was waiting for him to look back.

"Not yet, anyway."

His robe had parted the smallest bit and he could see the shape and curve of small breasts, her hair was dripping and covering just enough that he couldn't see them, but he'd been willing to bet her nipples were hard.

The skin showing in-between the lapels of the thing plaid fabric brought his gaze down. His skin was shucking off heat in waves, there wasn't nearly enough space between them for Lo not to feel it.

"You can rub up on me whenever you want," and he meant it. He wouldn't mind her sitting on his lap if it made his cock stop burning hot enough to light his pants on fire.

Her ankles let go of his knees and she pressed cold toes to the front of them and pushed. He obliged.

"Sit down."

He listened and she slid off the desk and slinked, he hadn't thought it possibly to slink in that small of a distance but she had it down pat.

Looking down she smirked.

Not knowing what was going to happen but deciding if what he thought was going to happen was going to _actually_ happen he leaned back, palms flat on the bed behind him with fingers clenching and unclenching against the blankets.

Her knee was next to his hip and she hesitated with one foot on the floor, wavering between his lap and the option of standing.

And there was that look of indecision across her face and then his hands yanking her down onto his lap to help her slow decision making process.

She was still for a moment and her head was bowed too low for him to garner even a bit of whatever look she was wearing, and then she moved in a rhythmic grind on top of his clenched thigh.

Long strokes of her pelvis across the heat of his leg between hers and he heard her moan out and felt himself sweat.

And it had nothing to do with his body temperature and everything to do with the girl on top of him.

Finally he could see her eyes behind her hair and the flush that traveled from cheek to neck to chest.

When she looked at him she stopped moving and held a breath she'd been about to let go.

She stood fast enough that he'd almost missed it and that he'd had to reach out to catch her hips so she wouldn't fall back.

They didn't speak but she bit her lips and he let go of her.

"Shit, I'm sorry."

He had nothing else to say but the obvious.

She palmed her hair off her face and didn't give any other response than a nod of assent.

Her breathing was haggard and her response came out shaky.

"It's fine, fuck I'm embarrassed. I didn't mean to do that," she looked at him.

"I didn't mean it, sorry."

"Sorry for what?"

He reached out when she didn't answer and saw that the blush was still there, she was still warm.

She shied away from the length of his arm.

And he got it.

"Oh. Oh! Shit. Did you…,"

Her gaze was fierce and hot on him then. Her tone as waspish.

"Did I what?"

He couldn't answer her.

"…"

She tsked.

"Did I what?"

And she leaned over him, hand on the railing of his bed and made him look at her. Her breathing was still heavy and the lapels of the robe had fallen further apart.

He swallowed and let out a breath. He kissed her. His tongue a brand across hers and his hand heavy on her arm, he flicked her lips when he pulled away and pressed up to her ear.

"Did you just _come_?"

The shakiness of her shoulders made him grin and he pressed a small, chaste, warm kiss to the side of her neck and then moving the robe the tiniest of bits, her shoulder.

"Did you?" he followed up when he went without answer.

Her response was hushed.

"No, almost."

"Then I'll just have to try harder."

She pushed herself back from the bed.

"Don't do that again," but the smile was there on her face.

"Don't do what?"

She looked at his hands and sighed.

"Don't just grab and pull, you'll surprise me and…I haven't gotten used to how warm you are yet."

He smirked up at her and shrugged.

"You want me to just sit on my hands then?"

Rolling her eyes she put a knee back up near his hip, the other followed and her hand was on his shoulder to steady herself. He couldn't help but leaned towards the skin of her chest.

He blew a breath down into her robe and was rewarded with a quick gasp.

When he peeked back up she was glaring down.

Suddenly he could feel his legs get cold, felt the heat in between his legs calm back to a manageable ache.

"Good thing you just did that."

She gave him a look.

"Why?"

"Because if you hadn't then I'd be coming in my pants the moment you decide to actually sit on my lap."

"Oh, is that so?"

She grinned like she was amused.

He licked his lips and she watched his tongue when he did it.

"Yeah."

Her face was level with his when she did lower herself onto his lap and he bit his cheek at the sound she made.

Surprised, or something like it, but not in a bad way.

"This would be a good time for you to start telling me all those fantasies, we are on the bed and all."

He laughed, but it was strained by the fact that she was so close and he could tell then, definitively that her nipples were indeed hard; he could feel them through her robe and his shirt.

"Oh?" He raised a brow at the request.

"Yeah, I'll even let you know which ones you have a chance at actually acting out…eventually."

His hand cradled the back of her head when he tugged her closer and licked from neck to jaw on her warming skin.

"Firstly you should know that you get me hard all. the. fucking. time."

Her hand tightened on his shoulder.

"Lately though, I've got this one thought that gets me off faster than anything else."

She laid her head in the space between his shoulder and neck and let her breath puff out in cold wisps.

"What is it?"

"You're riding me, slow, because you're not just above me you're against me and you're whole body slides up when you move. But that's the newest one."

Gently her lips are against his neck and he feels the cool imprint of her kiss on his hot skin.

"What's the first one?"

He racks his brain for the first time he'd ever made up an actual made-up situation about her, he thinks it must have been not too long after homecoming two years previous and he finds it.

"After homecoming I remember one day I saw you in your gym clothes and all I could think about was that you should wear shorts more often, you have great legs."

A soft lick danced across his pulse.

Warren swallowed and moved his hips, gently. Lo moved back.

"I've thought about them around ankles and you and me on the floor and we're still half-dressed and you let me…," he trailed off glad that he didn't actually have to see her face while he talked.

She pulled back, her hips rotating on his, even slower than before.

"I let you what?"

Her face was pink and her eyes were lidded.

She wasn't going to not look at him when he said it.

"You let me fuck you from behind."

His hips snapped up on their own accord.

Hers grinded down and he savored it with a pant that matched her own.

"What else?"

She found one of his hands and slid it up onto her thigh and then to naked hip, he felt the pressure of the belt from the robe on top of his fingers.

Rubbing his thumb across bone and skin he pulled her face back to him, didn't take his eyes of her.

"I think about what it'd be like to be buried in your throat, to have your tongue on me. I think about it'd feel like to have you yank on my hair with your legs over my shoulders when I bite you here," his hand trailed down to the inside of her thigh, fingers stroking and rubbing lines into muscle and skin.

"I think about you thinking about me, if you try to get warm a night by thinking of me touching you. Do you?"

She stopped her movement on him and licked a line on his shoulder; a hand ran under his shirt and just moved over the hardness of his torso for a moment.

Her mouth was on his ear in a second.

"I do more than just think about you; you've gotten me off more times than I can count already."

Without thinking he spoke.

"I've thought about you doing it for me, showing me."

Her body went rigid.

He yelled at himself inside his head.

"You have?"

"Yeah."

"How do you think of me doing it?"

Her tone was more curious than it had been before, as if she was analyzing something.

When he didn't answer quickly enough she went on.

"It's just, when I…,"

"When you touch yourself," he finished for her, his voice a rasp against her skin, his other hand moving to mirror the other under the robe.

He felt her chest moving with each breath, faster than before.

"I need friction, I can't just…my fingers are too cold, it's…unpleasant."

"So what?"

"I don't know, just thought I'd mention it. Most guys think girls get off in one standard way, but there are various ways to go about the whole thing."

That planted new erotic imagery deep inside his brain.

"Most of the time though _I_ think you touching me."

"Do you want to touch you?"

She pulled back and pressed her forehead against his.

"All the fucking time."

"I'll touch you anywhere you want, tell me."

He moved his hands off of her legs and let them lay to his sides.

Looking down she stared blankly before looking back at his face.

"Keep them there for now," she told him.

Her lips were back on his, molding and tasting and rubbing, her tongue broke out first and tangled with his, and he could count her pulse from the throb of it in his mouth.

Cool fingers wrapped around his hot ones gripping the bed with white-knuckled intensity.

She leaned back, her skin pink and the skin of her thighs pale against his pants.

"Push the top down," she stated primly.

And his hands moved unconnected to his brain with hers on top of them.

She wriggled out of the top of the robe with barely any of his help and she was pink and blushing and her breasts moved forward with each breath.

He wondered what he must look like at that moment, wild or something like it was his best guess.

Her hand dropped away from his which had waited patiently at her hips. Her fingers skimmed the stretch of skin between shirt and waistband and yank up his thin tank.

Arms raised on their own and she threw his shirt somewhere over his shoulder and sat back to stare at his chest and abdomen.

His ego and male pride stoked to a new level he brushed her wet hair off her shoulder and watched her face and felt her shiver at to motion.

"You have the cutest little tits," and he could have killed himself right then.

Her smile stopped him and she blushed deeper pink and rolled her eyes.

"They are pretty nice, I like em."

And her hands found his, the intent obvious until they dropped away and let him go on.

And then he was touching them, weighing their small mass in his hands gently.

And her breathing was soft and hitching against his face as she watched his face.

He circled a thumb around a pert nipple and she held a breath while he leaned it and planted a kiss to the top of each breast.

His eyes searched for hers when he let his tongue slip out and trace over the same kissed skin soft and wet until it trailed down and her eyes closed and her head titled back with her mouth opened the slightest of bits.

"Fuuuck, Warren."

She coughed in her throat when his tongue swiped over one and his hand on the other plucked and pinched.

He pulled his mouth away and she looked down her nose at him, head still tilted back and eyes glazed.

"Is this alright?"

His hand still molded the soft flesh and fingers still moved delicately.

She nodded.

"You can, ah, go…," she couldn't find the word.

"More?"

"Yeah, more."

He pulled his mouth to the other and let his hand mimic what the other had been doing.

Her hands moved through his hair and he let his teeth drag over the nub of hard flesh when he felt her nails on his scalp.

He sucked and she made a sound that gave him a cocky smile.

A hand moved over the one on the other side of her chest to make his hand move more firmly and he could feel her thighs clench over his hips as hers circled and heard her gasps in his ear as she bent her head to his.

"Where else?"

He figured he should ask.

When she pulled back and his hands fell away she looked confused, her mind not able to understand much beyond the haze she was in at the moment.

Finally when her breathing evened out he let his hand curl around her thigh, close to the knee and she scouted closer to it letting her chest meld to his and her forehead fall onto his.

His cock throbbed when she lifted her hips off his to give his hand space.

Hearing her swallow he let her take his hand and guide it to her sex, let her press his palm against it, let her eyes give his a hard glare that was anything but angry and let her rub while her hand fell away and his picked up the pace.

Not daring move or shift his fingers he found himself holding his breath for a reason he couldn't articulate.

She was hot under his skin, soft and wet and her chest rubbed on his, her whole body grinding against his solid one.

He watched her move back from his chest and felt her seat herself further onto his knees unable to do anything but move his wrist as she pressed down and circled it with the flesh that he'd made hot.

Her face was red and he realized she was holding her breath and letting it out in an unnatural rhythm, he made the connection that she was coming.

She let the air come out of her lungs and pressed her sweaty forehead to his shoulder, hips coming down on his, hand trapped between her tight thighs and her still rubbing against it wetly drawing the pulsing out for as long as she could.

When she calmed and she remained unmoving against him he didn't know what to say thinking to himself what was a guy supposed to say to the girl he just made come.

"Wow."

And she laughed loudly against his shoulder, letting her teeth drag over the skin. She bit down and sucked for no other reason than she could and had wanted to.

"Can I ask you something?"

"What is it?" she answered after a moment, tongue swiping the mark she'd made.

"How long do you have to wait until you can get off again?"

"Not long, like a minute. It's faster the second time."

"You would know," he joked with a smile pulling her off his shoulder to look at her.

With a look that left him boneless she answered him with, "Yeah, I would."

She took her body off his and lay down, her legs across his lap and her head on his pillows. He knew when he went to sleep later he'd be able to smell her on them.

He pulled his lap out from under her legs and moved to lay next to her, in all her tousled robed and pink-tinged glory.

He noticed his hand, palm wet with her and her staring at him. He licked his hand with a grin and leaned over to kiss her.

She let her legs curl around his and he followed them to settle over her, pulling his mouth back to trace her lip with his fingertips. He pulled the corners of her mouth up into a smile that let a real one in its wake.

"Are you…okay?" She asked after a breath.

She gestured down at his pants.

He grinned at her curious face.

"When you have a cock you learn how to ignore it so your life isn't ruled by it."

"That was eloquent."

"I try."

"Can I touch you?"

"Now? I kind of planned on touching you," he replied lamely not sure if he could last if it was her hand on him, and the thought that she shared the same thoughts on him touching her made it that much harder to not do what he was trying not to, namely embarrassing himself by coming in his pants.

"Now, later, eventually."

"Eventually."

"You are such a tease."

He rolled his eyes.

"I doubt you're allowed to have a sleepover here, otherwise I'd spend the rest of night showing you how much of a tease I'm _not_."

"Eventually," her expression left no room for debate.

"Eventually, and I'll let you have your way with me."

"Well my clothes aren't dry yet, how are we supposed to kill the time until they are," the look she gave him was certifiably tempting.

"I think a minute went by about five ago."

He let his fingers linger on her cheek.

She flicked a tongue at them and sucked one into her mouth, laving at it with a cold tongue and the barest hint of sharp teeth.

It made not embarrassing himself impossibly hard.

Sitting up she untied the belt of the robe once he leaned back and gave her room to do it. She took it off and threw off the bed and then she was naked, on his bed and he knew the image of it would never leave him.

Her wild hair, barely damp anymore hanging over small heavy breathing breasts, tinged pink, the toned stomach that he felt the sudden urge to kiss his way down, the legs he'd dreamed about having hitched around his hips, the spot between them with the blonde curls that he'd had his hand pressed to that he'd wanted to feel clench around his fingers, warmed by them, wet because of him.

He came forward and she leaned back to let him settle back on top of her, held up by a strong forearm. Her hands were rough when they traced his face and pulled his hair, he settled his weight on her while their tongues played in each other's mouth.

The washing machine beaped loudly from the basement below them.

His thumb rubbed a spot next to her hip red, he let his other move down over her leg and he pulled his mouth to watch her give him a nod of assent, her thighs shifted and he pulled up from her a fraction.

Her head was tilting back even before he made his way inside of her parted thighs. He hoped the scent of her never washed out of his sheets.

When he told her the thought she looked mortified to have it pointed out.

"I love the way you smell, right now."

He ground himself against her thigh boldly and he wondered if the look that plastered itself to her face was aroused or amused or anticipation or a mixture of all three.

"How does it feel?"

He let his knuckles drag along the inside of her knee and skin upwards.

"Good, great, amazing, makes me want to hump your hand again."

He laughed low in his chest and she smiled at him lazily.

"I think you're impatient."

"And I think you're taking this seducer role too seriously."

"I guess you'll just have to wait to get back at me until '_eventually'_ rolls around."

"Can't wait, Zippo."

"Looking forward to It, Sno-Cone."

She watched him like a cat as he let his knuckles rasp against softer skin, her hips hitched up and he felt her knees hit the outsides of his own gently.

He felt a foot trail down the back of his calf and the muscles of the thigh he hadn't had his hand on corral him closer.

"You know you don't always have to be such a good guy Warren," she told him with a pugnacious look on her face.

His eyebrow shot up.

"Oh, so you like bad guys?"

"Only when they get to the point faster than good guys."

He cupped her and watched her face change. Watched her eyes fall closed and her throat work around whatever words she'd been about to say.

"What about good guys that know how to act bad?" He ground the heel of his hand up towards her pubic bone and her hips snapped up.

It took her a moment to regain speech.

"I can work with that."

"Good now shut up."

She nodded hard and let her head twist on the pillow while he figured out how exactly to elicit the best reactions from her with his fingers.

He let the length of his fingers trail either side of wet skin, dragging firmly up and then back; she could feel her pulse between her legs, felt the hard hammering throb of it.

"Tell me what it feels like."

His hair curtained their faces when he leaned closer.

Her throat moved as she swallowed.

"Thought I was supposed to be shutting up."

Her eyes opened and her smile was shaky.

He rolled his eyes.

"Warm," it came out as a gasping whisper.

"Want to find out how hot my tongue is?"

Her eyes opened and he knew she wouldn't say yes, but she'd think about it.

"…ah…,"

"Not now then, but one day if you ask you can have more than my fingers on you, in you."

His teeth trailed her pulse and he let a finger press between wet slips of soft skin, she was slicker there. He let the fingers drag on either side and let one slip inside her.

Her pelvis followed his hand with a whine.

"Another."

She'd kept her eyes closed. Her lips settled themselves into an swollen opened pout.

He let another finger follow the first; he felt her clench around them and then buck suddenly, fucking herself wetly on his hand.

She watched him while she did it, while he pulled his fingers and then pushed them back, slowly and ground the rest of his hand against the rigid flesh above her swollen sex.

Her hand yanked his hair roughly and brought their faces close and he noticed how soft the sounds she made was, and a thought of how he'd always considered that if he'd had to chose he'd want to have a girl screaming his name in various degrees of loudness but the choppy shaky unevenness of the bastardation that came out of her mouth when she came was so much better.

When she finished she kept rubbing, kept circling, kept following his thrusting fingers.

And then she let her hips fall down and her legs relax and her eyes close.

He let his hand stray over her thighs, his fingers leaving a string of wetness across the skin.

When her eyes opened he made a show of licking them and then sucking them into his mouth, she rolled her head across the pillow and let her lips twist into a soft smirking grin at his actions.

His phone rang.

Her grin turned malicious.

"Hello," came out of her mouth before he had time to knock the phone away.

"You're a bitch, I've called _your_ phone like four times already and you promised you would help me clean up, asshole. If it had been an emergency situation I'd be dead right now because you don't know how to keep your phone on."

"You're an emergency."

"You and Warren's faces together are a hot sexy emergency. You guys making any volcanoes erupt over there?"

"Actually I'm naked and sweaty and Mount Vesuvius has yet to spew hot lava, but I'll keep at it."

"Glad to hear it, Mount Vesuvius, huh? I like it. I'm going to tell him that."

"He's right here, actually."

"Really, what's he doing? Can I tell him now?"

"He heard already, he's right here. I think I said that already. Pay attention. And, no, he can't talk to you right now."

"Why not? Again. What is the world's favorite fire-starter doing beside, oh wait let me guess he's doing you? Please say he is."

"Not at the moment, looks like he's just heavy breathing and equally sweaty sans shirt with a raging Mount Vesuvius."

"Well make sure to grind up on the good stuff."

"Been there, done that."

"Okay, I'm running out of punch lines for your nonexistent love life so can we get back to how much of a bitch you are to have left without helping me clean up?"

"I got vomited on."

"Yeah, so?"

"So get Zack to help you."

"He's a pain in my ass."

"Is that because he was rubbing it too hard while you were dancing?"

"…you are a bag of dicks."

"Yep. I know, I try."

"Whatever, so I'll talk to you later okay?"

"Alright."

"I think you and Warren should pick up on the romance, ask to see his room or something, grow some balls you pussy."

Magenta hung up.

Lo snickered.

"Well at least she can't ever say you never told her about this, if she ever finds out," he told her as she threw his fun onto the bedside table.

"There is that."

She let her hand stroke over the throbbing bit of him he'd tried his best to ignore, rather than indulge. Her hand got arctic, intentionally and the ache died, soothed.

"Some time, Warren I'm not going to let you off that easy."

"I hope not."

"Good."

* * *

It was true that they could not be like Layla and Will, mostly because Layla and Will did not slap the other's ass as they passed each other in the hallway, when no one was paying enough attention. It went without saying that Will did not meet up with Layla after an especially rough bout of Save the Citizen or Power Ball or Danger Maze to lick each her wounds by poking bruises and rubbing floor burn.

And it was true that they couldn't be like Magenta or Zack, mostly because Magenta and Zack had never exchanged rough, hard mouthed, smoked filled kisses behind the gym during lunch with cigarettes still in hand. It was equally true that Magenta had never without provocation reached up to tug roughly on Zack's hair during a boring class lecture.

But it was not true that they could not do the horribly clichéd and wary convergence of fire and ice, complete with fiery tempers and icy stares and steam, as Dolores and Warren.


End file.
